Description
Treatment of severely refractory Crohns disease (CD) patients remains a clinical challenge. Recent studies show efficacy of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) in these severely compromised patients. HSCT is thought to eliminate auto-reactive cells; however the mechanisms are incompletely understood. We followed a group of patients (n=18) receiving autologous HSCT, with 50% of them achieving endoscopic drug-free remission. To elucidate the mechanism driving efficacy we compared the immunological changes induced by HSCT in responders and non-responders.